HAND- IN- HAND TOGETHER THROUGH LIFE’S JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE ROAD
People lose their lives due to natural disasters, accidents and murders with their families. These types of tragic incidents are reported from many areas in the island. Among those were husbands and wives. There is information about natural deaths which do not fall into those categories.
As fate would have it, according to the wheel of ‘Sansara’’ it is very rarely that a couple has to die on the same day, and this story speaks about a couple who breathed their last in the evening of May 4.
The village where they lived as their temporary settlement was Wathurawela in the divisional secretariat of Balapitiya where no development has dawned so far. This couple was old and they lived under one shelter in the evening of their life.
However, Wathurawela area had a lush green environment where they spent their life in keeping with the laws of nature; They lived happily in their little home.
Henabadalge Munis (82) and Anthony Weralage Rosalin (72) had four children - two sons and two daughters who are now adults. Nishantha and Shantha are twin brothers who are in the prime of their youth. They were abroad when their parents died. The main objective of the old parents was to find suitable marriages for Nishantha who had gone abroad but they had no burden about the other three who were already married.
Although the married son and daughters requested the parents to come and live with them, that request had been turned down by their parents who had pinned their hopes to live in the same house and village where they were born and bred.
H.B. Rupa,(44) the eldest daughter said when she participated in the funeral to pay her last respects, “I wanted our parents to live with us after our marriage. But, they wanted to live in their ancestral house where they were born and bred. That is how they lived together.”
The children who spoke to us said their parents did not have any financial difficulties because their son Nishantha who lived abroad sent money to them. The younger daughter Rohini, had looked after them because they were in close proximity to the parents.
Munis who had worked as a mason to earn a livelihood and bring up their two elder daughters, and their two sons had worked in a bakery. In the meantime, Rohini had migrated to Saudi Arabia for domestic work and her daughter who attended pre-school with the grand father, is now in the prime of her life.
With the passage of time the old parents had spent a peaceful life, they were devout Buddhists and were interested in engaging in religious practices. In spite of the fact that their sons and daughters had not shirked their obligations on behalf of the parents, this old couple had breathed their last in the Elpitiya Base Hospital on May 4, at the same, when they had been admitted to this hospital for medical treatment. The medical officer of Elpitiya Hospital returned a verdict of heart attack when the post mortem was held.
The couple who left an everlasting impression in the minds of not only their children, but also the villagers, breathed their last on May 7 and their funeral took place at the public cemetery in Wathurawela.
The numerous meritorious deeds of this couple would have indeed helped them to live together, fall ill together and leave this world together ending a wonderful story of a beautiful life and a peaceful death together, hand in hand with each other.